Chapter 32
(Ryan POV)
I didn't remember actually drifting off. One second I'm staring through the fluorescent lights at Deino curled up by my feet in that grey waiting room, the next I'm waking up with my neck kinked sideways and the clock reading 6:14. The overnight attendant is gone, replaced by someone half-buried in a magazine who hasn't looked up once.
Outside, Route 203 drips grey and ordinary. Somewhere out there Marsh is still wandering around free, and I note that the way you note a bruise I know it's there, I'm not going to keep pressing it.
Deino's legs twitch in his sleep. I lean down and rest my hand on his side until he stirs, ears forward, head swiveling before his eyes are open. He reads the room, finds nothing, relaxes into my palm.
"Morning," I murmur.
I return him. Then Prinplup she goes back without protest, which means she's either exhausted or already deep in Whirlpool planning. Probably both.
Yesterday had made one thing very clear: no loose Pokémon on open routes until I have Stronger pokemon . Or a better plan. Ideally both.
At 6:31 the treatment bay doors open and Rhyhorn walks out. The nurse is mid-sentence soft tissue, three to four days, limited battle use and Rhyhorn walks straight past her, looks at me once, and the look says don't.
"Good morning to you too," I say.
She scans the waiting room. Checks the corners. Sits near the door.
I return her. She lets me, which is its own kind of answer.
We're on the road by seven. Cold, wet, completely empty and I jump at a falling leaf, my own shadow, and once at genuinely nothing. Three times in twenty minutes. Very smooth.
We walk past the flattened grass where we crashed through the treeline last night. I don't stop.
An hour in a Starly dive-bombs me from a low branch, screams directly in my ear, and leaves before I can process what happened. My bag nearly goes with it. I stand there for a second.
Two hours in the route is just gravel and puddles. Mud has worked its way into my left boot. My shoulders stay up anyway.
Then I heard them.
Four guys, around my age, walking the same direction and one of them was facing backwards, talking to the rest, completely unbothered by the fact that he had no idea what was in front of him.
What was in front of him was me.
He spotted me mid-sentence, pointed, and lit up. "Hey there's a trainer! Cas you owe me those fifty pokédollars right now!"
I had no idea what was happening but honestly it was kind of funny. "Fifty pokédollars," I said, "what was the bet?"
The whole group turned around. The one called Cas looked less annoyed about me and more annoyed about the fifty pokédollars, which I respected.
"I said probably no trainers this early because of the rain," he said. "Finn decided that was worth betting on."
"You said definitely."
"I would never say definitely, I'm a probably kind of guy."
"He definitely said definitely," the third one said without looking up from the paper bag he was going through.
"Whose side are you on?"
"The factually correct one."
The fourth one he had a Staravia on his shoulder and the calm energy of someone who'd stopped picking sides a long time ago looked at me. "Milo," he said, like that was an introduction. Maybe it was.
"Ryan."
Finn was already walking beside me like we'd agreed on it. "So where are you coming from? You look like you slept in a chair."
"I did sleep in a chair."
"The Pokémon Center back there?"
"Yeah."
He looked at me sideways. "League guys were on the route this morning. Said there'd been an incident last night."
"There was."
"You okay?"
"Yeah." I thought about it for a second. "Actually yeah."
Cas had fallen into step on my other side. He glanced at my belt with the focus of someone who couldn't help it. "How many do you have?"
"Three. Water, ground, dragon."
Finn stopped walking. Actually stopped. "You have a dragon type."
"He's in his ball."
"On route 203."
"Still yes."
Finn looked at Cas. Something passed between them. Then Finn turned back to me. "Okay so. Cas has been absolutely unbearable since Oreburgh because he hasn't had a decent battle and I've had to listen to it for two days straight and I think you should put him out of my misery."
"I haven't been unbearable "
"Yesterday you challenged a wild Bidoof."
"It looked confident."
"Cas. It was a Bidoof."
I laughed. "Yeah alright," I said. "One battle."
Cas was already reaching for his belt. "I'll take it."
"You're going to lose," Milo said pleasantly.
"I might learn something."
"You're going to lose and learn something."
Cas sent out his Geodude with the energy of someone who'd been waiting two days for exactly this. It landed on the wet path and looked genuinely ready.
"His name is Rock 'n' Roll by the way," Finn said.
I looked at the Geodude. Then at Cas. "Rock 'n' Roll. Why would you name him that?"
Finn immediately started laughing. Like actually laughing, bent slightly forward.
"It fits," Cas said, with the dignity of someone who had defended this decision before.
"It really doesn't though."
"It will," Cas said. "When he evolves into a Golem it's going to fit perfectly and all of you are going to feel very stupid."
"HE, IT IS A PERFECTLY NORMAL NAME," Cas said over all of them.
Nobody agreed. Even the Geodude looked uncertain about it.
I looked at Rhyhorn's ball.
Soft tissue. Three to four days. Limited battle use. The nurse had said it twice, deliberately, while making eye contact like she already knew.
I released her anyway.
Rhyhorn materialized and took one look at Rock 'n' Roll and her expression said: a Geodude. Sure. She'd handled worse things last night.
"Oh she's beautiful," Finn said, and he completely meant it.
"She's going to destroy my Geodude," Cas said, also completely seriously.
"Those two things aren't mutually exclusive," Milo said.
"Rhy." I kept my voice low. "Tell me if it's too much okay?"
She didn't look at me. Obviously.
"Rollout!" Cas called.
The Geodude curled and launched, fast and straight.
"Scary Face," I said.
Rhyhorn fixed it with that stare. The roll wobbled, momentum suddenly gone, and Rock 'n' Roll skidded sideways and splashed directly into a puddle at the edge of the path.
Nobody said anything for a second.
"...Okay," Cas said.
"Rock Blast," I said. "Controlled, Rhy."
She fired once. Twice. The third hit square and Rock 'n' Roll uncurled and sat down in the mud and didn't get up.
Cas recalled him and stood quiet for a moment, actually thinking it over. "The Scary Face into the puddle. She read the Rollout and used the momentum against it"
He looked at Rhyhorn with genuine respect. Then reached for his next ball. "Okay. Ponyta. I'm not done."
"Cas," Milo said.
"I'm learning."
"You're losing."
"Learning by losing, there's a difference." He looked at me. "One more?"
I returned Rhyhorn before she could turn around and give me the look. She'd done enough. "Prinplup."
She landed, clocked the Ponyta in half a second, and her expression said: fine.
"Water type," Finn said. "Cas."
"I see it."
"Do you though."
"I see it Finn, I have eyes."
The Ponyta stamped. Fast I could tell by how it shifted its weight before Cas had called anything.
"Ember!"
"BubbleBeam."
Prinplup's jet met the Ember halfway, hissed through it, kept going. The Ponyta dodged left and came back with a Quick Attack before I'd said a word. It clipped Prinplup's shoulder and she stumbled one step, just one, and answered with a point-blank BubbleBeam that sent the Ponyta sliding sideways through the mud.
"Pluup," she said. Completely flat.
The Ponyta filed a formal complaint with Cas using only its eyes.
Cas laughed and recalled it. "Your Prinplup looked at my Ponyta like it was an inconvenience."
"She looks at most things like that."
"What does she actually care about?"
"Whirlpool. She almost had it yesterday and she's been thinking about nothing else since."
Prinplup looked at me. Her expression made clear that was private.
"Sorry," I said. Not sorry.
Finn had been staring at Rhyhorn's ball since I'd returned her. "Can I see her again? Just for a second?"
"She might give you a look."
"I'll take it."
I released her. Rhyhorn materialized, assessed Finn immediately, gave him the full evaluation. He held very still.
"Hi," he said quietly.
Rhyhorn looked at him for another long second. Then turned to face the route ahead.
Finn exhaled. "She's incredible."
"Don't tell her that, she'll get worse."
"She can hear you," Milo said.
"I know."
Rhyhorn's ear flicked. She said nothing.
The jerky guy whose name turned out to be Seb, I caught it when Finn said it had finished his bag and folded it into a neat square and put it in his pocket. "Valley Windworks has been weird lately," he said, like he was continuing a conversation we hadn't started. "Team Galactic locked the whole area down. Trainer came through yesterday said you couldn't get near the place."
I looked at him. "How recent?"
"Few days ago maybe." He said it like he didn't think it was nothing.
I filed it away.
We walked together for another twenty minutes same direction, no particular reason. Finn talked mostly, and it wasn't annoying because he was actually funny. Cas asked about Oreburgh, about Roark, about the Coal Badge. I told him and he listened the way people do when they're actually storing the information.
At the fork the route split left toward their campsite, straight toward Jubilife.
"This is us," Cas said. He held out his hand. "Good battle."
I shook it. "Yeah. Good battle."
"Your Rhyhorn is going to be terrifying when she's fully healed."
"She's already terrifying."
"More terrifying then."
Finn pointed at me. "If you ever want someone to battle who will genuinely try their best and still probably lose, find us. We camp loud so you'll hear us."
"I noticed that yeah."
He grinned. Milo raised a hand without turning around. Seb nodded once, which from him felt like a lot.
Then they were gone around the bend and the voices faded into the trees and it was just the path again.
I returned Rhyhorn gently. "You did good today," I said. "Both times."
She let me close the ball without argument.
I kept walking.